Halftime is the rest break in the middle of a match. Fifteen minutes to change ends, drink something and be shouted at.
Football, rugby and basketball all have one, and the halftime team talk is a fixture of sporting folklore. The word also names the score at that point, so leading at halftime means nothing is settled. British English usually writes it with a hyphen as half-time, and American English as one word or two. American football turned it into entertainment, and the halftime show is watched by people with no interest in the game.
1nounhalftimeThe interval between the two halves of a match.
“They were two goals down at halftime.”
Also accepted in games: half-time, half time
Middle English
half
English
half
English, today
halftime
From half- + time. half comes from Middle English half. From Middle English half, halfe from Old English healf (“half”); as a noun, 'half', 'side', 'part', from Proto-West Germanic halb, from Proto-Germanic halbaz. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA